Awfully Good: Street Trash

Street Trash (1987)

Director: J. Michael MuroStars: Bill Chepil, Vic Noto, James Lorinz

The new adult beverage Viper is so good, it'll make your face melt!

Let's not play games. The only reason to watch something like STREET TRASH is for the disgusting, graphic, over the top gore (if you can even call it that). And to that end, this movie succeeds in spades.

Tom's last thoughts: "Bear hugging Dr. Manhattan…totally worth it!"

As the title might suggest, STREET TRASH is a classic of trash cinema—literally, as most of the film takes place in a garbage dump populated by a community of filthy homeless people. More specifically, it's another entry in the long lost "melt" genre of films, where people's bodies are subjected to all manner of liquid disintegration. (Think former Awfully Good feature THE STUFF.) This is where STREET TRASH excels. All the "melting" scenes are amazingly executed, grossly entertaining and worth the price of admission. These victims don't just turn to ooze. No, they painfully mutate as they decompose, bleeding neon colors as their skin bubbles acid and they tear away their decaying flesh. And it's all done practical too with gallons of slime and pus, grotesque puppetry and more. They just don’t do effects like this anymore and it's a shame.

Live action Spongebob is not for the faint of heart.

Thankfully director J. Michael Muro opts for the absurdist route, turning STREET TRASH in to a bizarre horror-comedy. (He even apes a bit of old-school Sam Raimi-style camera mayhem.) Some filmmakers might pull it off with a winking nod to the audience, but Muro goes for broke in a big way. Scenes like the famous "Toilet Meltdown" are memorable enough, but then he throws in what I can only describe as "Penis Keep Away." It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like: A bum accidentally pees on another bum, so he cuts off the guy's schvantz. Then he and the other homeless gents begin tossing around the poor man's severed member in the world's cruelest game of Monkey in the Middle. The victim comically chases his own penis around for a while before finally getting a hold of it (rimshot), at which point he hitches a ride on a nearby school bus…making the children scream as they look out the window to see a guy holding disembodied genitalia. Isn't that special?

The film adaptation of King Missile's "Detachable Penis" was fairly faithful.

There's honestly not much of a plot to STREET TRASH. A liquor store owner finds a hidden stash of a drink called Viper, sells it to his homeless customers for $1, and it begins to melt faces. Muro throws in a good amount of social commentary on class warfare and our treatment of the homeless and veterans, but it's muddled by the sheer number of random characters you have to follow. There's the homeless brothers trying to survive, a renegade cop attempting to crack the case of people puddles, the maniacal Vietnam vet Bronson who’s the tyrant of the junkyard (along with his diaper-wearing girlfriend) and about 10-15 other people who have to share screentime. (Among them, James Lorinz of FRANKENHOOKER fame!) So obviously you're watching STREET TRASH for the aforementioned gore, not a compelling story. That, and the fact that X-MEN director Bryan Singer worked as a PA on the set.

I don't even want to know what that guy ate.

Even better than the utter contempt this cop has for the female bystander is the crowd's reaction to his last line.

1) Some of the best "melting" scenes. And one "exploding" one for good measure. (Probably NSFW)

2) The infamous scene where everyone plays Monkey in the Middle with some poor guy's severed penis. (Definitely NSFW)

Quite a bit actually AND it's equal opportunity for both sexes. (These homeless guys get laid!)